Moelis UK subsidiary reverses loss to swing into stellar profits

Michael Bow is a reporter at City A.M. covering private equity, funds, investments and asset managers. He can be reached on michael.bow@cityam.com

Follow Michael

Michael Bow

THE BRITISH arm of boutique investment bank Moelis & Company more than doubled revenues last year despite a dip in advisory services in Europe, its annual accounts shows.

Moelis’ UK subsidiary, which is based in St Paul’s Churchyard in the City, saw fee revenue increase from £19.8m to £44.5m for the year ending 2012, according to the filing at companies house.

This helped drive a pre-tax profit of £10.2m, reversing a loss of £8.7m for 2011.

An increasing share of the UK division's turnover came from activities undertaken in the UK and US, with 39 per cent of advisory fee flowing from work completed in the UK market last year versus 20 per cent a year earlier.

Work completed in the US saw a 26 per cent share of the UK arm's turnover against nine per cent last year.

However, fees from mainland Europe obtained by the UK subsidiary collapsed from 61 per cent to just 21 per cent.

Earlier last month the company made a one-off cash distribution to its managing directors totalling $35m (£23.4m).

The New York based firm, founded by Wall Street veteran Ken Moelis has carved a niche in the financial world offering bespoke advice.

It advised Heinz on its $28bn sale to Warren Buffett earlier this year